According to the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), around 97,000 passport booklets issued throughout the 36 states of the country, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), have gone uncollected.

Tony Akuneme, the Service Public Relations Officer (SPRO) Comptroller of Immigration, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja.

According to Mr Akuneme, the service recently discovered that Lagos State possessed half of the uncollected passports.

He also stated that there was a risk that half of the uncollected passport owners would be unable to be contacted owing to a lack of sufficient documentation as a result of third-party involvement.

He indicated that the purpose of declaring a state of emergency was to capture the attention of the media so that they could let many individuals know if their passports were ready for collection.

He said, “There are booklets issued that are not collected. It is ironic, we don’t have problem of booklet, we don’t have shortage of booklets.

“What we have had in the last one or two years is a sudden upsurge in the number of Nigerians wanting to travel. We felt it was also related to COVID-19,” he said.

The Immigration Service however promised to address issues with passport issuance around the country as soon as possible.